Hot Seat with Dr. Tobias Ide

Tobias currently studies the intersections between (1) global environmental change (including climate change) and (2) peace, conflict and security. His three-year DECRA project analyses how high-impact disasters resulting from natural hazards (e.g., storms, floods, droughts) can affect the (de-)escalation of armed conflicts. Further research interests of Tobias include climate change and conflict, conflict de-escalation, environmental peacebuilding, environmental politics, research methods, and the critical geopolitics of education. While taking a global comparative approach combining qualitative and quantitative information, for instance via qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), he has also done extensive fieldwork, most recently in Israel and Palestine in 2018.

Tobias holds an MA in Political Science (Leipzig, 2012) and a PhD in Earth Sciences (Hamburg, 2015). Afterwards, he worked at the Georg Eckert Institute and the University of Braunschweig, and held visiting positions at the University of Melbourne and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

His research has been funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC), the German Research Foundation (DBU), the European Union External Action Service (EU-EAS), and the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU), among others. Recently, Tobias published in journals like Nature Climate Change, Global Environmental Change, Journal of Peace Research, Political Geography, International Studies Review, and Annals of the Association of American Geographers.